This weekend will see a performance which is the culmination of a very ambitious and spectacular arts project.
As part of the London 2012 Festival, Torchbearers brings together over 160 performers from the South Wales Valleys and the township of Langa in South Africa.
The composer and musical director for the project is RWCMD’s Head of Jazz, Paula Gardiner. Not content with organising a mini Jazz Festival, a residency at Hay and being nominated for a Parliamentary Jazz Award – as well as running the BMus and MA Jazz courses here at RWCMD – she’s spent the last three years working on Torchbearers too.
Paula has written the score for the show as well as directing the community choir and orchestra. It has also been a fantastic experience for musicians from across the College, who are working on the project as part of their outreach studies.
Torchbearers is the story of a young Welsh actor and an African dancer who in 1964 are given the chance of living the dream when they win parts in the film Zulu. As the two young people are drawn closer to each other they find themselves falling in love, but their lives are ripped apart by the apartheid system and they never see each other again until fate plays its hand forty years later. It takes place at the Wales Millennium Centre on 20th and 21st July.
Here’s a preview:
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